authority

Called by a Name

eejoseph, ,

Introductory Note

Names are never neutral. They carry the weight of identity, the imprint of authority, and the scars of history. In scripture, to be called is to be claimed—sometimes by covenant, sometimes by empire. In the African diaspora, names were stripped, replaced, and resisted, becoming both a site of oppression and a spark of liberation. 

This reflection explores the power of naming—from Nazareth to Babylon, from the Middle Passage to modern reclamation—and the promise of the secret name God gives to every believer. It is a meditation on how names shape destiny, how reclaiming them restores dignity, and how the divine call seals us with intimacy that no empire can erase. 

Called by a Name

He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth. 
Prophecy whispered: He shall be called a Nazarene. 
Not just geography, but destiny. 
Not just a label, but a claim. 

I. The Weight of Names


In Hebrew memory, names are more than syllables. 
They are covenant, breath, and burden. 
Abram stretched into Abraham, 
Jacob wrestled into Israel. 
To be called is to be claimed, 
to be summoned into story. 

But empire renames. 
Daniel becomes Belteshazzar, 
identity bent beneath Babylon’s tongue. 
To rename is to rule. 
To resist renaming is to remember. 


II. The Diaspora’s Cry

Across the Atlantic, chains carried not only bodies but names. 
Kwame became William, 
Amina became Ann. 
The erasure was deliberate, 
a stripping of lineage, 
a silencing of ancestral drums. 


Yet in hush harbors, in coded songs, 
the old names hummed beneath the new. 
Memory survived in fragments, 
waiting for reclamation. 

III. Reclaiming the Call

Today, when sons and daughters of the diaspora 
adopt African names, 
it is not nostalgia. 
It is not rhetoric. 
It is resurrection. 

It is saying: 
We are not what empire called us. 
We are not the names of plantation ledgers. 
We are the names of rivers, of ancestors, of freedom. 
To be called again is to be restored. 

IV. The Nazarene Parallel@

Jesus was called a Nazarene, 
a title of scorn, 
a mark of obscurity. 
Yet prophecy turned insult into identity, 
mockery into fulfillment. 

So too the diaspora: 
names once erased, 
now reclaimed, 
become prophecy fulfilled. 
The act of naming is not nostalgia— 
it is resistance, 
it is covenant, 
it is liberation. 

V. The Secret Name

And yet beyond all human naming, 
there is a name that empire cannot touch. 
A name no overseer can erase, 
no ledger can record, 
no whip can silence. 

“To the one who overcomes,” Revelation declares, 
“I will give a white stone, 
and on the stone a new name written, 
which no one knows except the one who receives it.” 

This is intimacy beyond oppression. 
This is uniqueness beyond renaming. 
This is God whispering identity 
that only you and He can share. 

VI. The Forehead Seal


“They shall see His face, 
and His name shall be in their foreheads.” 

Not the brand of empire, 
not the scar of slavery, 
but the seal of belonging. 
The forehead becomes a canvas of covenant, 
the body itself a testimony: 
I am called, 
I am claimed, 
I am His. 


VII. The Ultimate Liberation

So what’s my name?

So the believer bears two names: 
the one shouted by empire, 
and the one whispered by God. 
The first seeks to erase, 
the second restores. 

The first is public, imposed, 
the second is secret, intimate, eternal. 
And in the end, 
the secret name triumphs. 
The forehead shines, 
the stone glimmers, 
and the believer stands 
with a name that cannot be taken away. 

What people call one another are usually chips we seldom cash in.

Everyone a prophet

eejoseph, , , ,

Final, vital prophets, and other vain headliners

It is a kind of default badge for people in what they think are new movements to seek a accreditation by associating the movement with a prophet or some other icon of authority.  Whatever the choices are for an icon it is hoped that the movement acquires an aura of authenticity.  This is a madness that envelops religion.

Book mixup

Historians and theologiams have found similarities between Christianity Islam and Judaism which can only be explained by the fact existence of a common source. The “people of the book” designation must be taken literally, otherwise people would need to rely on oral tradition and, frankly, rumour speculation and folklore. Christians had the same Hebrew Bible, its (second century BC) translation into Greek, and the belief in one GOD. The unique Christian book, the New Testament, did not take shape until the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and the Arabs had neither book nor monotheism until the 7th century. The only book that could have been a source for the thoughts that reliably lift people towards Divinity must be the Hebrew Bible.

Those unfamiliar bridges

What are females?

The creation of woman is unique among the creation narratives. The existence of an alternate version means that the book cannot be trusted. Neged as the term defining the relationship between male and female cannot possibly mean the lame “beside” or “suitable” with which we are familiar. Rib, from which God made Eve, is help and protection, as ribs are known to protect the vital organs, heart and lungs. Neged also describes equals in negotiations and equals face to face. The reason the first woman is called “mother of all living” is obvious, but mother as source could not be a male honour. Man becomes part of the living chain only through women. Hence women represent the fact of being alive, and the “out front” part of the life cycle. Or do we want to imagine that God’s bringing Eve to Adam could be something other than a face to face presentation? So what’s with the hidden or invisible woman, the second class female, and the exclusion of females from any human endeavour?

What are words?

If Christians, Muslims and Jews read the first three chapters of the Hebrew Bible study Christians are less likely to grasp the foundations of human life. The vocabulary and grammar leaps off the page into a clear understanding, and the meaning does not need to pass through translations and revisions of translations such as we find in the 17th century King James version and the 19th century Revised Standard version. When one has no respect for the distance between the 21st century and the unique materials that have come to us through Jewish hands, the search is over for the counterfeit and diabolic.

Relative goodness

He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

No matter what people call themselves they know what is good, they know what justice looks like, they appreciate kindness (given and received) but they all have a problem with humility. Just look at the jockeying to be first and tops in humanitarian ventures, even when the game has been called repeatedly, for kings, priests and mystics. There is no second Solomon, no remixes of covenants and promises. Isn’t goodness within the reach of all humans apart from a creed or cultural framework?

Least in tune

It makes sense that projection is involved in the claims people make about themselves. The expression of such claims are either external or internal. It is always what we wear, clothing or life itself. The liar broadcasts his abhorrence for lies, and unholy people wear their holiness on their sleeves. A prophet is only a big deal for people who want to avoid God.  Do people not have a moral obligation to read sacred texts? The landmark encounter with God in the Jewish experience is still the Exodus and Sinai Covenant. The elephant in the room of every reflection on history and personal accountability is the broken covenant; broken from inception by choosing not to hear Moses instead of God’s voice and violated to the present day via idolatry. The indications are that neither Jews, Arabs nor 21st century seekers make any significant progress without acknowledging the demise of prophets and the rise of anointed leadership without precedent. Of Yahweh, Isaiah wrote:

Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.

Isaiah 40:11, NASB

Ezekiel, a prophet of priestly background, also wrote:

For thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day.

Ezekiel 34:11-12

I [emphatic] will feed My flock and I [emphatic] will lead them to rest,” declares the Lord God.

Ezekiel 34:15

It is Moses, the prophet who dared to ascend Sinai and be as God to the Egyptian king who assures us that prophets are going to be common.

But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!”

Numbers 11:29, NASB

The Arabs of the 7th century were neither fans nor followers of Moses, disciples of Jesus nor owners of the Hebrew Bible or the Greek Testament. Every tenet in the Bible takes on an extreme profile while the virtues of love and moderation become mere platitudes. We are great at avoiding GOD by means of talk. A lot of yapping about God blesses no one. First and last things get reversed any way, and it is the truly eternal statutes that demand our attention: justice, mercy and faith[fullness]. So let’s take Moses and John the Baptist seriously, before we find it really challenging to exit the prophet trap. We are not going to impress God by being hard line on crime and sin. God has already shown what his answer is to human sin, and it is a sacrifice, not fixing behavior.

The prostituting of politics and protestantism

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Few of us foresaw the pandemic of 2019 and there are no reliable predictions of its end. Western civilization is not some intelligent creature carved out of Moses doctrine or Jesus glory. It is irrational, xenophobic, rapist, papist, and just like all the outbreaks of populism and regional religion, bends towards imperialism and colonialism instead of being committed to real commonwealth.

Protest and you lose your credibility

The politics of the western democracies makes outlandish and sometimes visionary claims.

The features of politics remain:

[ ] Irrational, because it repeats the “never again” lie in response to crises
[ ] Xenophobic, due to persistent us/them societal constructs
[ ] Rapist, because of thd priority of colonial aspirations
[ ] Papist, because dominance through threats of death is the modus operandi of the devil and religious bodies

A poor diet

Those Christians, especially the leaders, who seek the advantage of an alliance with government may be mistaken for a variety of scavenger, like shrimp or vultures, gobbling up everything in their imaginary moral galaxy. Their activity spectrum includes everything that forms the platform of the very beast that the follower of Yeshua of Nazareth is warned against in the direst warning from a Messiamic authority. The correct designation of the phenomenon – of political power allied with religion – is prostitution (sometimes also accurately as adultery).

First Beast: war and enforced worship of the devil.


they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?”

Revelation of John 13:4

Second Beast. Carboncopy of the first beast


Revelation of John 13:12

He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed.


And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. (Rev. 13:15)

Severest warning ever


9. Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10. he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

Revelation of John 14:9-10

The church needs no civic power to succeed. There is more than enough evidence of administrative and interpretation corruption. Christians openly drinking mystery Babylon’s wine is not going to be debated or spun for anyone’s benefit.